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An encounter with a spider will never be the same again … This warm-hearted book offers fascinating science and captivating storytelling to persuade readers to fall in love with—or at least tolerate—these eight-legged wonders. Eight-Legged Wonders unveils the remarkable lives of one of the most misunderstood and maligned creatures on the planet: the spider. With over 50,000 species, spiders play vital roles in our ecosystems and the vast majority are harmless to humans. With this in mind, shouldn’t we at least try to set aside our creepy-crawly associations, and cultivate a deeper appreciation for these truly wonderful beings? Eight-Legged Wonders helps us do just that. In this affectionate and surprisingly giddy ode to spiders, James O’Hanlon, a scientist and spider expert, introduces spiders that we may never have noticed before, including spiders that cosplay as ants, balloon through the air, and scuba-dive. He describes the peacock spider's colorful dances and the Portia jumping spider's cunning hunting techniques. He dispels bite concerns, highlights groundbreaking research using spiders for human benefit, and aims to shift perceptions, ultimately revealing spiders as truly remarkable beings worthy of our admiration.
The hidden elegance in everyday objects and physical mechanisms, from crumpled paper to sandcastles. Hidden Wonders focuses on the objects that populate our everyday life--crumpled paper, woven fabric, a sand pile--but looks at them with a physicist's eye, revealing a hidden elegance in mundane physical mechanisms. In six chapters--Builders, Creating Shapes, Building with Threads, From Sand to Glass, Matter in Motion, and Fractures--the authors present brief stories, set in locales ranging from the Eiffel Tower to a sandcastle, that illustrate the little wonders hidden in the ordinary. A simple experiment that readers can perform at home concludes each story. More than 200 illustrations bring the stories to life.
A richly illustrated and up-close look at the secret lives of spiders and other arachnids The American Southwest is home to an extraordinary diversity of arachnids, from spitting spiders that squirt silk over their prey to scorpions that court one another with kissing and dancing. Amazing Arachnids presents these enigmatic creatures as you have never seen them before. Featuring a wealth of color photos of more than 300 different kinds of arachnids from eleven taxonomic orders--both rare and common species—this stunningly illustrated book reveals the secret lives of arachnids in breathtaking detail, including never-before-seen images of their underground behavior. Amazing Arachnids covers all aspects of arachnid biology, such as anatomy, sociality, mimicry, camouflage, and venoms. You will meet bolas spiders that lure their victims with fake moth pheromones, fishing spiders that woo their mates with silk-wrapped gifts, chivalrous cellar spiders, tiny mites, and massive tarantulas, as well as many others. Along the way, you will learn why arachnids are living fossils in some respects and nimble opportunists in others, and how natural selection has perfected their sensory structures, defense mechanisms, reproductive strategies, and hunting methods. Covers more than 300 different kinds of arachnids, including ones new to science Features more than 750 stunning color photos Describes every aspect of arachnid biology, from physiology to biogeography Illustrates courtship and mating, birth, maternal care, hunting, and defense Includes first-ever photos of the underground lives of schizomids and vinegaroons Provides the first organized guide to macroscopic mites, including photos of living mites for easy reference
The essential illustrated introduction to insects for nonscience majors Bugs Rule! provides a lively introduction to the biology and natural history of insects and their noninsect cousins, such as spiders, scorpions, and centipedes. This richly illustrated textbook features more than 830 color photos, a concise overview of the basics of entomology, and numerous sidebars that highlight and explain key points. Detailed chapters cover each of the major insect groups, describing their physiology, behaviors, feeding habits, reproduction, human interactions, and more. Ideal for nonscience majors and anyone seeking to learn more about insects and their arthropod relatives, Bugs Rule! offers a one-of-a-kind gateway into the world of these amazing creatures. Places a greater emphasis on natural history than standard textbooks on the subject Covers the biology and natural history of all the insect orders Provides a thorough review of the noninsect arthropods, such as spiders, scorpions, centipedes, millipedes, and crustaceans Features more than 830 color photos Highlights the importance of insects and other arthropods, including their impact on human society An online illustration package is available to professors
An accessible field guide to more than 500 of the most commonly found spider species in North America Of the more than 49,000 species of spider worldwide, some 4,000 are in North America. Spiders of North America explores more than 500 of the most common and interesting spiders found in this region of the world. This richly illustrated guide begins with an overview of spiders—what they are exactly, how they can be found, how they develop, and why they are important. The book features information on all the major spider guilds: sensing web weavers, sheet web weavers, orb web weavers, space web weavers, ambush hunters, ground active hunters, other active hunters, and spider hunters. Chapters contain accessible descriptions for identifying members of each spider family, including helpful tips for distinguishing members of similar families, and details at the genus and species levels. Stunning color photographs and informative distribution maps accompany the text. Useful descriptions for identification of each spider familyStunningly detailed macro and in-situ photographsInformation on all the major spider guildsHandy distribution maps
Dive deep into the underwater world with Fantastic Fish Facts: Everything You Need to Know About Fish, a fun and colorful journey through the oceans, rivers, and lakes! This book is packed with cool fish facts, amazing stories, and fascinating adventures that will keep young readers hooked from start to finish. Learn about the biggest, smallest, fastest, and funniest fish, how they live, what they eat, and the incredible ways they survive in their watery homes. Perfect for curious kids who love animals, this book will turn you into a fish expert in no time!
Master the art of companion planting in your vegetable garden—with 20 veggie pairings, delicious recipes, and helpful tips and tricks for the horticultural matchmaker. In this charming guide to companion planting for your vegetable-garden favorites, you’ll learn why Broccoli ♥ Rosemary and whether Cucumber + Corn = friends with benefits . . . Just watch out for Celery! Leggy and leafy, she is notoriously easygoing and will happily settle down with just about anyone, raising a ruckus in your raised beds. Featuring 20 pairings, tasty recipes, preparation tips, and more, Soil Mates is the perfect partner for your horticultural matchmaker.
Compared to insects, fossil spiders have received only scant attention in the literature. Previously, the only works available were numerous scientific papers, many published in foreign languages. Most of these are basic descriptive taxonomic works, with very few considering broader biological concepts. Despite a significant increase in the discovery and description of fossil spiders within the last quarter Century this void remained unfilled. Thus, this short monograph aims to achieve several objectives. Firstly, to provide general and up to date background information on the overall importance and diversity of fossils spiders, including an indication of those groups for which the taxonomy is spurious and in need of reassessment. Secondly, to discuss the techniques available for working with fossil spiders and some of the problems encountered by palaeoarachnologists, including bias and limitations of the spider fossil record. Thirdly, the overall evolutionary history of spiders is summarized in the form of an evolutionary tree, which is subsequently used to address key issues of broad interest, such as origins, diversifications and extinctions, including the effects of mass extinctions and predator-prey co-radiations. Finally, the contribution that fossil data can make to understanding the past and present biogeography of the order is considered. This book should be of interest to both amateur and professional arachnologists and palaeontologists and will also serve as a general palaeontological reference work for neonologists studying extant spiders.
Spiders have a problem, and it’s us. Despite their magnificent talents for crafting webs, capturing mosquitoes, and camouflage, for millennia arachnophobia has hampered our ability to appreciate these eight-legged and -eyed marvels. No longer! In this witty, accessible, and beautifully illustrated guide, Christopher M. Buddle and Eleanor Spicer Rice metamorphose creepy-crawly revulsion into spider wonder. Emerging from ambitious citizen science project Your Wild Life (an initiative based at North Carolina State University), Dr. Eleanor's Book of Common Spiders provides an eye-opening arachnological overview of the natural history of species most noted by project participants, showcasing some of the fascinating spiders found in our attics and tents, front lawns and forests—and even introducing us to spiders that fish. Exploring species from the tiny (but gymnastic) zebra jumping spider to the naturally shy and woefully misunderstood black widow, this guide will be a tremendous resource for teachers, students, and scientists alike. But more than this, it will transform the way we perceive the environment around us by deepening our understanding of its littlest inhabitants, inspiring all of us to find our inner naturalist, get outside, and crawl across the dirt—magnifying glass in hand.
Recently retired Air Force commando Thomas Mazuko was looking forward to a quiet future spent teaching karate in his small Tampa, Florida, studio. His dreams were of little more than days on the sandy beaches and nights in the company of his wife and children. Little did he know that his instinctive reaction to witnessing the mugging of an elderly woman would set in motion a chain of events that would drastically alter the course of his life. By sheer accident, Mazuko becomes a primary target for the wrath of a powerfully connected local syndicate figure. When the wealthy and egomaniacal Martin DeValdez sends out wise guys to "teach this upstart a lesson" Mazuko's foster son and a young student are caught up the maelstrom of uncontrolled chaos. As the level of violence escalates, Mazuko realizes that he has become the target of vengeance of a man who will stop at nothing to right what he perceives as personal wrongs. With the body count rising and the lives of his tenaEUR"yearaEUR"old daughter and twoaEUR"yearaEUR"old son, as well as the lives of friends, new and old, hanging in the balance, Mazuko must set aside his plans for a quiet retirement and return to the skills of his past in order to fight for his life and the lives of his children.